


Perihelion

by stephanericher



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Bad Weather, Established Relationship, M/M, Pre-Canon, Rain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-06
Updated: 2016-02-06
Packaged: 2018-05-18 15:14:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5932948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephanericher/pseuds/stephanericher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As it is, they’re close enough for Ren to steal a kiss, when he abruptly decides he wants one—he smells like sap and dirt, disgustingly organic, and yet Hux waits to pull away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perihelion

The automated transport breaks down in the middle of the woods, of course. It’s not expected (First Order vehicles are supposed to be kept in top shape) but hardware failures are unfortunately inevitable. Nonetheless, it would be better if it had occurred a few meters from the test facility Hux had been inspecting (or a lot closer to the main outpost), or if there had been a droid with them, or if Starkiller hadn’t been quite so close in its highly eccentric orbit to perihelion, in which case the ground would be hard beneath them and the skies would only threaten snow.

But as it is, he’s trapped here in the middle of the forest at what passes for midsummer here, with only Ren for company. His comlink, at least, is working (the first thing he’d done was get a hold of Mitaka and order for a tow speeder to get both them and the broken transport back to the outpost) even if the network connection for his datapad is not. Ren himself does not appear agitated; he’d only kicked the fallen transport once and hasn’t yet reached for his lightsaber. And there is work to do on the disconnected datapad; he can enter some numbers and draft some forms while they wait. Of course, he’d hoped (foolishly) that it wouldn’t actually begin to rain, but before he can open even a single file the clouds begin to shred themselves and sow their waste down onto the surface of the planet.

Hux is not fond of rain. He’s not fond of the outdoors in general—he’s spent most of his life onboard one ship or another, used to the world outside the viewports being uninhabitable and empty, predictably void, dotted with stars and planets and moons occasionally but mostly blank. Planets themselves are less quantifiable, less predictable, filled with entropy and soil and unreasonable creatures and viruses and all sorts of unpleasant things. Why anyone would choose to remain planetside when given the opportunity to stay in space Hux has no idea (other than the basic fact that people are generally foolish, which explains quite a bit but not everything). And rain is perhaps the easiest example of this—being pelted with polluted water at irregular intervals is clearly less than desirable.

Hux scans the area; up ahead is a relatively large tree—the space under its boughs could be relatively dry and give them the option to stand up straight—options which, with this kind of organic shelter, are generally mutually exclusive. The water pelts his forehead, his cheeks, his hair, his clothes—this can’t be good for the leather; that needs to be specially cleaned and he’d just replaced his gloves last week. It makes a dully half-musical sound against Ren’s helmet, loud and intrusive and wrong—and it reminds Hux that Ren’s face is not getting wet, not getting bitten by the air that even this time of year is unforgivingly cold. They reach the tree; Ren pushes aside the boughs and Hux ducks under them, immediately rewarded by relative dryness (as well as the thick aroma of sap, which he supposes will have to make do—it’s not as if the rest of the forest smells much cleaner). He’s still examining it, wary for small insects, when he hears a hissing sound, the kind produced by an opening seal.

Ren pops off his helmet, holds it out in front of him as he shakes free his hair. His face is still dry; he’s so clean it almost looks mocking. Free of the filters of his mask, his breath comes out in visible puffs of condensation. The speed of the rain picks up; the unpleasant sound of water hitting the needles and the cold ground grows louder, reminiscent of a speeder long overdue for repairs. Ren shifts his helmet to under his arm; Hux reaches into his coat to bring out the datapad. If the rain stays out, it probably won’t get wet.

Ren’s free arm stops him. Not with the Force, but with touch—his hand grips Hux’s forearm (his hand is so large it nearly encircles Hux’s arm thumb to fingertip, even with the addition of his coat) and Hux looks up to glare Ren’s serious expression.

“Don’t.”

Ren rarely says these things like this—usually it’s a biting remark about how if he has this much work left at this point he must be inefficient, how surely he can’t plan that far ahead, how he’s a slave to the file system (all of which are thinly-veiled ways of whining for attention). Hux doesn’t like the idea of Ren ordering him, physically stopping him—but if he really wanted to, he could wrench his arm away and Ren might let him. A question—why he should do what Ren wants right now—rises to his lips but does not escape (only the vapor in his breath does, crystallizing in the air and falling away). He lowers his arm to his side.

Ren’s hand does not move away; he is still looking—his eyes are not sharp and piercing but there’s something about them, about how they flicker like the edges of his blade even as his gaze is fixed, steady on Hux’s. And then Ren’s mouth closes any remaining physical distance; he releases Hux’s arm and reaches up to touch his face; the cold dampness is no worse than his nose on Hux’s cheek, his lips on Hux’s mouth—which soon give way to the warmth of teeth and tongue and the inside of his cheeks. He’s ravenous, a beast in a gladiator match starved for this exact purpose, fingers pulling at Hux’s already-damp hair, pushing up on his hat. He’s pulling at every thread of Hux, trying to unravel him—he bites down against Hux’s lip and Hux pushes his tongue against the teeth, brings his own hand up to pull at Ren’s hair and reposition his head so he’s not pushing so much against the hat—Ren makes a pleased sound when Hux’s glove makes contact with his scalp and lessens the pressure of his jaw; Hux pulls his lip free and then pushes with it, against Ren’s mouth. And then he realizes he’s out of breath.

He pulls away, well aware of how he must look—lips swollen, the mark of Ren’s teeth still visible, hat askew and hair half out of place. Ren’s cheeks are flushed; his eyes are wide; he looks excited and pleased and Hux is disgusted with them both. What are they, teenagers sneaking away from school seeking cheap, obvious thrills? In the middle of a forest with a broken transport? Ren thumbs over the bite marks; they’re shallower than Hux had thought they might be—and by the time the troopers get here they should be gone.

The tone of the raindrops becomes more urgent, a split-second warning of the wind—it blows through the trees, spraying them with water as if they’re on a cliff by the edge of the sea, drenching their faces and blowing fallen needles, brown and green, against the stark blackness of their clothes.

“Can’t you stop that with the Force? Throw up a shield or something?” Hux shouts, barely able to hear himself over the wind.

“No! It doesn’t work like that; I’d have to stop each individual needle—”

“And you can’t do that?”

Ren ignores him; Hux has already turned his back to the wind. He begins to brush the needles away from his face, sweeping across with his gloves—none of this can be very good for his skin. The wind is still throwing needles and water at his back, but his hair is already messed up and he’s already wet, so at this point it’s a lost cause. He’s going to need a longer time than he would have liked in the refresher, but at this point it’s something to look forward to—hot, clean, sterilized water and a nice cup of caf and a reliable network connection and still interior air. It won’t be quite like being back on the _Finalizer_ but it will be much closer to adequate than this. The wind continues to push at him, as if trying to topple him like a rotting tree—and then it dies, with even less warning than it had come.

Ren’s face is covered in needles; he pulls at them with the Force—it’s not completely effective, but he doesn’t seem to notice. His hair is even wilder than usual, matted and knotted with needles and twigs and stuck to his face and neck; he looks like an overgrown, lost child. Perhaps Ren can hear this thought, too—or he can tell by the way Hux is looking at him that something’s off. He reaches up to brush off his face, but the state of his gloves makes this completely counterproductive. It’s foolish, but that thought crosses Hux’s mind with an undercurrent of something very unlike disdain. He reaches up his own clean glove to Ren’s face.

He brushes the hair off of his forehead; that only serves to clear away a bit. Hux plucks off the needles still clinging to Ren’s cheeks and chin and nose. They stick easily to his wet glove, and honestly Ren could have done this himself if he’d bothered to try—give it more than a telekinetic once-over. But Ren is Ren, and the likelihood of him doing that is far too low. It’s much more likely that he’d try to rub his face all over Hux’s and get him stuck with needles all over again. As it is, they’re close enough for Ren to steal a kiss, when he abruptly decides he wants one—he smells like sap and dirt, disgustingly organic, and yet Hux waits to pull away. When he finally does, when he’s flicking the needles from his gloves (which are ruined at this point anyway), Ren pulls the helmet back down over his head, disregarding the state of his hair—but it’s his choice, and he certainly looks more presentable like this.

The sound of a tow speeder cuts through the incessant rhythm of the rain. Hux straightens his hat and pulls out his datapad. The ride back will be long enough to get a few tasks accomplished, if nothing else. He looks at Ren; Ren’s mask is still tilted toward his face—Hux can’t see Ren’s eyes but he knows they’re locked on his just the same.

**Author's Note:**

> yeah i made everything up abt starkiller's rotation i dont actually know but it's been raining a lot here lately /shrugs that's it that's the reason for this
> 
> also it's my birthday tomorrow so give me comments thx


End file.
